Prince Edward Island

Today we drove 140 miles to Caribou, Nova Scotia to take the car ferry to Prince Edward Island.  This is our third ferry so far; however, this one was only 75 minutes, but we only went 14 miles!  True to Canadian Maritime culture, there was more music on this ferry.  We drove about 75 more miles to Charlottetown, the capital.  This is the first place where we have seen more significant evidence of wealth.  Charlottetown has many beautiful waterfront homes and has put a significant amount of resources into making the waterfront attractive and pleasing to tourists.  The geography here is much different from what we have experiences thus far--very flat and full of farms.

We checked into our dorm room at the University of Prince Edward Island which is much like the others, but we do have a semi-private bath--so no trips down the hall in the dark.  Although there were some PEI entertainment opportunities in town, we were both a bit weary of being tourists, so we went to the movies and pretended we were just regular Canadians out for the night.  We saw The Help, which was quite good!  Oh yes--last night's music turned out to be some very good jazz--a welcome break from seafaring songs!

Diane

Our son Scott asked if the picture of the bald eagle shown in yesterday's blog was taken by Diane. Scott it was.  We were driving along the Cabot Trail, when I just caught a glimpse of what I thought was an eagle in a tree. So we backed up, and there it was, sitting in a tree about 20 feet from our car. So Diane snapped a few pictures, and on one the eagle turned its head to its left, and that is the picture we used.

Later in the day, we drove by a moose, chomping the grass and twigs on the side of the road.  That's where we got that one. One the boat, we have been able to see what we thought were a few whales, and dolphins, and tonight, when we were walking around this campus here on Prince Edward island, a fox walked right by us at about 30 feet away. So-wildlife is all around us.

For those of you who have not seen The Help yet, both Diane and I recommend it. Diane also read the book, and says the movie followed the book closely, and she liked both the movie and the book.

Prince Edward Island university campus is very large, and quite nice. It has several buildings under construction, as most of the other campuses we have stayed also do. The rooms are quite adequate, but there is a unique student odor that permeates these walls. Ah well, we get what we pay for.

Chalottetown is a very quaint city, and one of the best we have seen so far, although I still like Halifax the best. The geography of this island is much like the finger lakes, although it is much flatter. There is much farming here, more so than we have seen elsewhere.

The weather both yesterday and today has been super, and today reached 80 degrees. What a welcome feeling after a solid 10 days of rain and cold.

Tomorrow we will try some biking, and just wander around the island, and then on Tuesday it is off again to our final province Quebec.

Joe